Well we made it. Our squad traveled for more than 30 hours and the jet lag has definitely set in. It’s my second full day in Battambang and even just looking at the little markets and people riding mopeds while sitting in a tuktuk, makes me see life so differently.
This morning we went to church, and that was when culture shock fully set in. We went to the Battambang YWAM church service and the worship was all in Khmer as well as the sermon. We had to listen to a translator and use ear buds in order to understand. Although it makes it more difficult to completely feel connected to the worship, it just shows how many different kind of people, cultures and languages there are in the world and yet God is completely involved in each and every one. Our God is so great that He amazes me in a new way every single day. For instance, He has taught me so much about myself in these two and a half days of being in Cambodia. That I take for granted clean tap water, ice cubes, air conditioning, a comfy pillow, a bed, a home, and so much more.
I needed this. I needed to be shown that I am so lucky to have all of these things back home. That even though right now I don’t have those things, I still need to be so thankful that God brought me here to help the people that don’t have those things, to show them that complete happiness only comes from Jesus and Jesus alone. The things of the world are just fillers, fillers to try and satisfy the hole in our heart that nothing can fill except for the love of Christ. Today in church with YWAM, the preacher was talking about how the people of Cambodia worship idols, and honestly, that’s not much different from America. In America we worship material things, we depend on them to fill the void of our hearts. We go to sex, drugs, alcohol, material things, all of which are the ways of the world. We will never be completely happy if we choose those things over the love of Jesus. Just hearing the preacher talk about his testimony and him explaining how all of his family and friends worship those things over a God that only wants their love opened my eyes to how I was living before. That I was living only for me, living in darkness instead of the light that was right in front of me all along.
He is fighting for you every second, all He wants is for you to feel loved and cherished. Hearing his sermon through a translator showed me how universal and loving God truly is. He will never stop fighting for you. He will always forgive the mistakes you make or have made, all He wants is for you to be His son or daughter that cares for Him the way He does for us.
I know I will continue to learn more and more about myself and the world I live in. But no matter what, I will continue to fight for Jesus’s love the way He fights for my love. He is my happiness and I pray for those who read this, you will find what is truly real and that is His love.
